TikTok Boom

Ruby Dixon, author of the Ice Planet Barbarians sci-fi romances, launches a romantasy series with Bull Moon Rising, #10 on our hardcover fiction list. It centers on Lady Aspeth Honori, who seeks to join the guild of magical artifact hunters; guild member Hawk, one of the Taurian race of minotaurs; and their “steamy marriage of convenience featuring all the unusual anatomy Dixon’s fans expect,” according to our review; “the worldbuilding is well done and the love story convincing.” Ice Planet Barbarians was a self-published BookTok success that Berkley picked up and began reissuing in trade paperback in 2021; book one has sold 104K print copies and book nine, Barbarian’s Heart, is due out in January.

Who’s Next

Knight Owl and Early Bird by Christopher Denise alights on our children’s picture book list at #19. It follows 2022’s Knight Owl, which received a Caldecott Honor and has sold 204K print units. In the new book, brave young Owl, who aspires to knighthood, meets chipper Early Bird, his biggest fan. Owl is “an archetypical kid, like Max from Where the Wild Things Are,” Denise says. “He’s sophisticated, complex, he has this vast imagination, but there’s still a childlike aspect to him.” Early Bird, meanwhile, reminds readers that “even in the smallest and most annoying character, there’s great strength and wisdom.”

Justice League

Framed, the #5 book in the country, shares 10 “fascinating and infuriating” accounts of miscarried justice, per our review, told in alternating chapters by John Grisham and Centurion Ministries founder Jim McCloskey, whose nonprofit works to exonerate the wrongly accused. McCloskey relates the facts of cases his organization worked on, and Grisham draws on his extensive research. The New York Times and ProPublica have asked that Grisham more prominently credit Pamela Colloff, whose reporting for those outlets informs one of his chapters.

NEW & NOTABLE

War
Bob Woodward
#1 Hardcover Nonfiction, #1 overall
“Pulitzer winner Woodward explores the efforts of Joe Biden and his administration to cope with foreign conflicts while a baleful Donald Trump waits in the wings,” per our review. He “delivers several dramatic revelations, among them that Trump made illicit phone calls to Putin concerning Ukraine after leaving office.”

The Waiting
Michael Connelly
#1 Hardcover Fiction
In Connelly’s sixth crime thriller costarring Renée Ballard, the LAPD detective uncovers evidence that an extremist group is planning a terrorist attack in Malibu. To thwart it, she enlists the help of Connelly stalwart Harry Bosch. “As always, Connelly brilliantly renders the ins and outs of these investigations,” per our starred review.